Forward planning
The Open Patent Alliance (OPA), a group dedicated to assisting the development of WiMAX, has been pretty quiet since it was formed nearly a year ago. Today it received a boost with the announcement that the world's third biggest PC maker - Acer - has decided to join.
Founding members of the OPA include Samsung, Cisco and WiMAX's most ardent promoter Intel. There are also a number of Telco infrastructure companies, but this is the most powerful representation yet by the PC sector.
Acer is especially successful in the notebook and netbook sectors. It's generally accepted that future notebook users will expect to be wirelessly connected at all times so this is a clear investment in the future by Acer. It's surely no coincidence that it has recently entered the smartphone market too.
Acer already offers embedded WiMAX in some of its notebooks, but global WiMAX coverage is still far from ubiquitous.
"The OPA is excited to expand the reach of the 4G WiMAX ecosystem to include non-traditional companies like Acer - a leading innovator on the cusp of the computing/cellular convergence revolution," said OPA President Yung Hahn.
